


Technicalities

by AtlinMerrick



Series: Binary Stars: Techienician [10]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Techienician - Fandom
Genre: A starship that keeps the tenuous peace of the Galactic Concordance, Always, Clan Techie loves Matt the Radar Technician you best believe, Especially WHEN YOU PROMPT MEEEEE, M/M, Made those up and sticking to 'em, Matt loves Techie, Matt's full name is Matthew Kee, Sexy and sweet, Sometimes sad but always better by the end, Stand alone chapters of little things they know about each other, Story marked as complete but each chapter stands alone, Techie's full name is Galacian Asha'Techk, Techienician, There is no First Order really but all else is the same, They both work on the Accord, Will always be adding more chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-07-19 21:15:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7377706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtlinMerrick/pseuds/AtlinMerrick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are lots of little things they know about one another, Clan Techie and Matt the radar technician.</p><p>Precious-important things like what they wanted to be when they grew up, where they love most to be kissed. To two men who were so long alone, these sweet minutiae are like the stars they see out the ship's windows: Each one unique, a world unto itself.</p><p>Over the years they'll grow their little galaxies of knowledge, technicalities they'll call them, sweet things, precious-important things Techie knows about Matt, and Matt about Techie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Scent of Spices

There are lots of little things they know about one another, Clan Techie and Matt the radar technician.

Precious-important things like one another's full names, the thing they always wanted to be when they grew up, where they love best to be kissed. While such minutiae may be dull to others, to two men who were so long alone, these sweet things are like the stars they can see out the ship's windows: Each star unique, a world unto itself. Yet unlike those distant stars, Matt and Techie can hold these bits of one another in hand or heart, reverent.

Over the years they'll grow their little galaxies of knowledge, technicalities one of them will say one day, and it will stick. Little things Techie knows about Matt, and Matt about Techie.

* Techie likes order, for example. It may not seem it, he's anything but tidy with his tugged hems and bouncing gaze. Still, chaos for the technician is a broken circuit, while precious order is that circuit mended. How that mending takes place never matters though: tape, solder, one thing wedged against another to keep a connection snugged tight—it's all good to Techie so long as in the end a thing _works._ His passion for order has satellite benefits for in making things work Techie's become good at rooting out the rare, the needed.

That means finding licorice Alsakan sugar sticks which _no one_ likes, no one. Except Mattie. Even the Voni who sold them to Techie said she thought they were some kind of weapon left over from the clone wars. It also means finding the one posada hardly anyone knows only five blocks from the Voni spice markets. Because oh my Matt _loves_ strong scents and from their tiny posada Techie knew he'd be able to smell real spices on the air, ginger and star pepper and dried honey roses.

* Here are things Matt did not used to know: There are deliciously oily perfumes made with salt nettle and honey rose. There are heavy, dark perfumes in which float black anise and green doaki. And here's the interesting thing about these things: If a man puts these perfumes on his body, well, another man can get quite lust-drunk hunting the tiny dabs and then sucking them clean away. In truth, the first time Techie did it he _over_ did it, placing on his lanky frame too much doaki and nettle and a half dozen spices Mattie had never heard of.

Though "over did it" was relative really, when the result was two men eventually boneless and self-satiated. By the time Matt found the black anise—right about where you'd think to put something called, you know, _anise_ —Techie was spread wide and stroking himself off while Matt lick-poked and humped the sheets.

* Techie didn't think he had any…things. Special things that he liked. In bed. He knew he liked Mattie, obviously, and he liked what Mattie liked because Mattie liked it, but for awhile Techie had no particular wants. Then one night he woke to Mattie masturbating and though that had happened before—Matt had lots of dreams and some of them were _those_ sort—what he'd never seen before was Mattie's fingers weaved into his own hair.

Techie had stayed very still and watched Matt who, eyes-closed and huffing soft, hadn't realized he'd woke his lover. The closer Matt got, the more hair he clutched until finally he pulled and climaxed at the same time. After Matt fell asleep again Techie inched out of bed slow-slower-slowest—because knowing what he was going off to do excited him and being slow about it excited him even more—then headed to the fresher, where he sat on the toilet's edge and wanked to the vision of Matt fisting his own hair with both hands.

* Matt would never lie to Techie so the first time he found himself caught for grinning stupidly he admitted why. "I like it when you do that," he said, gesturing at his scowling love, hunched over a circuit board. Techie's pupils whirred wide, his brows drew low, and he said in his broad accent and disbelieving, "You like it when I…fucking swear?" In reply Matt had grinned beatific.

Okay fine, that was fine. Next time Techie had to replace parts in the datapads of three clumsy officers, the technician brought his work home, fished out his tiniest tools—his hands are dexterous but too big for some of the smaller instruments—and for an hour he worked, he dropped things, he swore, and Mattie, stretched out on their bed, beamed like some sort of besotted, bespectacled angel.

* Techie's been different for as long as he can remember. He's been ginger-haired since he was born and he's not yet been to a human-inhabited world where redheads weren't looked at as either junior demons or special needs children. So there's that. Then there's Techie's machine eyes. Some are fascinated, everyone stares, an arrogant few assume he's mecha and treat him accordingly. So yes, Techie's always been not-right in some way or other.

Then there was Matt. Matt who's taller than everyone in any room, a hulking sort of bulky, with his own kind of not-right eyes. Techie was in love the first minute he saw the radar tech, he really was. So smitten was he, he hadn't even thought to look away that time he was staring and Matt saw him. He must have smiled or done something else appealing because Matt side-ways grinned at him and then shoved his whole head behind an instrument panel.

* Matt never lies to Techie but sometimes he does not tell the whole truth. Like that time they first met in sector eight? Matt had looked up to see this ginger geek holding a giant hex key, staring at Matt like he wanted to unscrew his parts. The skinny guy had looked kind of deranged and when he noticed Matt noticing him he…grimaced wide.

Matt would have just turned away then but that's when he saw the skinny guy's eyes, how his pupils dilated and contracted, flick-flick-flick. Why _that_ made him realise the redhead was maybe flirting with him Matt's not sure, but he is sure it made him blush, smile, and duck away. That's the bit he tells Techie, when Techie asks what he thought when they first met. "The second I saw how you looked at me," he says, "I was in love."

_I love to wonder about little things, what a character sings in the shower, when they last laughed uncontrollably, how they need to be touched. So these series of stand-alone chapters of Clan Techie and Matt the Radar Technician will be about these small things. Please prompt, as The_Honeyed_Moon did when she said, "Exotic. Spice. Shop." P.S. Here's a tiny grounding in[Clan Techie and Matt's origins](http://atlinmerrick.tumblr.com/post/146854302379/techienician-clan-techie-matt-the-radar). And P.P.S. I've got [lots more stories](http://archiveofourown.org/series/495943) about these [beautiful boys](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7930627/chapters/18125374)._


	2. Words, Wishes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt knows words have power. He learns as many as he can for concepts both rare and common. Then, at night, he whispers these to his one true love.
> 
> And sly-asleep, Techie hears, and Techie learns.

* Right from the start Matt wished gentleness for Techie. Can a man do that? Wish a world of kindness on a man he does not yet know? It must be possible because from those first days, when he and Techie were still just grinning at each other over consoles, Matt found himself wanting the world to be kind to this pale, raw-eyed man. It was more than those hurting, red-rimmed eyes that brought out Matt's tenderness, it was the way Techie sometimes moved as if to leave no trace. Oh my but Matt thought someone like Techie, he should be seen, known, cared about, so that he knew he belonged. Belonged right where he was.

* Can a man sense gentleness in another man? Can he? It must be possible because right from the start Techie felt a rare comfort when Matt was near. He didn't even have to see him most times, he could feel his gravity in a room, a center around which it felt like he himself could freely move. It was like what Techie's always imagined a black hole would feel like, except Techie didn't think of Matt as dark or destructive, instead there was…a density to him, a solid certainty. Like an old, old star. Yes. That's it.

* There's just the one ocean on Vohai but it's a big one. Matt's not sure if they were just lucky or if all along Frellen's shore the little minnows congregate, but what Matt _does_ know is he'll bring Techie back here again and again just to watch his sweetheart wade in among the phosphorescent little fish, lie back in the water, and float like a ginger mer, the tiny minnows gathering all around him and limning his long, lean body radiant with their golden phosphorescence.

* Techie remembers three things from that trip to Vohai, a planet so excitingly near the edge of the galaxy. The first was the puking awfulness of the Alsakan licorice Matt discovered there. The stuff has no odor, thank god, but it tasted like something from the bottom of a hundred-year-old trash compactor. Frankly, Techie would rather lick a Hutt than kiss Mattie after he's eaten that stuff. The second thing Techie remembers is how the bright little fish nibbled on his fingers and ears and how he did that to Mattie later that night and Matt got so ticklish he rolled right off the bed. That led to the third and most precious thing Techie remembers: Mattie giggling on the floor by the wide windows, his body washed pale in the milky light of a galaxy's worth of stars.

* Matt set himself the mission the first time he saw Techie cry, and that mission was to ingratiate himself with every doctor, medic, or nurse on the _Accord._ As part of this endeavor, for these strangers Matt found things, fixed things, and fetched things, _anything_ that got him a bit of knowledge, a specialist's name, a couple extra credits to put away. Forget about repairs to optics so ill-made they robbed a man of his ability to truly weep. Watching Techie _try_ to cry after a malfunctioning blast door nearly took off his arm, well all Matt knew was that some day they'd be able to get Techie brand new eyes and Matt would know who could, where they would, and he'd have the money when. He'd make sure of it.

* Techie is a fascinating drunk. So says Matt, Kade'e, Lieutenant Chorla, even that hospitality droid on deck eight. Because Techie's 'drunk' changes depending on what's got him there. Corellian brandy makes him so hyper-focused he says he can hear someone whispering two decks up. Starfire 'skee makes him very itchy and twitchy and nope he's never having _that_ again. Effervescent emerald wine? Well, _that_ wonderful stuff lowers every. last. inhibition. that Techie's got. All of them. Clothes become restrictive, unvoiced thoughts tragic, and urges denied, impossible. After an excess of emerald wine, the only way to calm Techie _down_ is to get Techie _up,_ get him inside his one true love, and let the man _ride._

* Matt likes words. Sure, some people expect big men to have small vocabularies, but Matt liked language even when he was little. He's always enjoyed having words for feelings and concepts, but since Techie it's become a passion. Now Matt knows a dozen Mandalorian phrases for family, he has endearments in Teek, poetry in Hapan and Galactic Sign, and at least a few words— _"Pallama'du mi"—_ in Old Tongue. Lately though, Matt's favorite word is in Basic and that word is evanescent. It means passing out of sight or memory, it means fading or disappearing. Tonight, carefully taking in Techie's sleepy breaths, Matt smiles at the beauty of this word. Evanescent…like their loneliness. Like their years alone. Yes. _Evanescent._

* Techie doesn't pretend with Mattie and he doesn't lie, but sometimes, just sometimes, Techie fibs sleep, because sometimes Mattie talks to him then, soft whispers, little monologues murmured against his skin. Tonight Techie breathes slow and even and he listens as Mattie sighs so many of the pretty words he knows, he listens close and he learns, so that when next time Matt murmurs _skeen_ as they pass in a corridor Techie knows he has said _darling._ When he says _talla-duztek-kora_ Techie knows Matt has crooned _you are so sexy._ And when Matt says _pallama'du mi_ Techie can reply just right and in the only language he knows. _I love you, too._

—  
_On Twitter I[requested prompts](https://twitter.com/AtlinMerrick/status/758989951929245696) that I would use for minutiae across three(ish) fandoms: [Sherlock](http://archiveofourown.org/chapters/17436322), [Star Wars](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6998662/chapters/17469904), and our teeny ship of Techienician. I prompted myself with 'gentleness,' Dee offered 'phosphorescence,' Belpita followed with 'the milky way,' Spunky Expat with 'repairs,' and AnNa with 'effervescent' and 'evanescent.' So many perfect word presents, thank you all. (And do send more as they occur to you please!)_


	3. In Extremis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matt and Techie, they're not men of extremes.
> 
> Except when they are...

* Unless he's quite literally carried, Techie'll avoid the fresher for _days._ There are reasons for this and those are these: The man doesn't tend to stink even when he sweats so, you know, why bother? The other is that Galacian Asha'Techk is a lazy creature who much prefers tangling his legs with his lover's for five more minutes than getting out of bed to clean come off his belly. This by way of explaining why half the time there is a questionable substance on the hem of his shirt, why the back of Techie's skinny wrists bear the faded smudges of reminders he's written there for himself days ago, and why the man's fine bright hair half the time looks as lank as if it were styled by a greasy-handed Brigian monkey.

* Matthew Kee is kind of sexually shy but also kind of not. He doesn't have the sensuality of his one true love, a man who'll moan right against his mouth in a roomful of people, a man who will grin toothily as he sleepily lifts his shirt-hem to show off plump morning wood, but Matt, well he's got his ways to tempt and tease. One of his favorite is to wait until they're both just minutes from being late for work and to then quick-like—*bam!*—grab one of Gala's t-shirts instead of his own. With a sigh deep and rumbling Matt let's his love see the tight stretch of that too-small shirt across his broad back, then slowly zips his coveralls up over his big chest. Techie's cock-adjustments and foul-mouthed complaints all the way to their sector leave Mattie giggling and self-satisfied for _hours._

* So it's true Techie's not as easy with endearments as Mattie, yet he does have his own…tendency. Gala names things. Some of those names veer wildly from the elegant, such as _pecker pillow,_ his name for Mattie's plush chest and _humping place,_ Gala's name for that spot in hydroponics where they first got a good feel of what was in each another's pants. There are tender names too, though, including _happiness juice_ for that sugary caf drink they both love, and _angel wings_ for the lapis-blue tunic in which Mattie looks so, so good. The best names though are what Techie calls their slow and lazy love-making and its result and while even he doesn't know why that soft rutting is _making puppies_ or why the warm come is _baby beans,_ it doesn't really matter does it, any more than why Mattie calls his love _little worm._ Just so long as he—so long as _they_ —always do.

* Mattie's got a box, bout the size of his thumb it is, not too much longer or wider, and this box has little things inside, because Matt likes little things. On a starship you get used to keeping things small, so when Matt collects, the stuff is tiny. Like the green taffa bead that fell from Techie's hair way back when the only thing Matt knew about the red-haired man was that he desperately wanted to know the man. Actually everything in that little box is from before they became _them._ So it also holds a screw Gala'd distractedly put in his mouth while watching Matt fix something, then awkwardly apologized for sucking on it before returning to his station. There's a pretty orange button Gala'd given him for no other reason than it matched his own hair. That tiny blue box even has inside a small knot of that very hair, something Techie'd just yanked free in distracted impatience then dropped to the decking one day. Basically Mattie's got a weird little Gala box, one he's kept though they've been together years now. It makes him happy. And it's small. There's room.

* Techie doesn't tend to extremes over-often, so when this mousey man roars it's…noticeable. It was to that trooper, the new one who swaggers, the big one who's twice kicked a fluxdriver out from under Matt's reaching hand. Today the tool skittered back behind a bulkhead and when the trooper rounded that bulkhead they found Techie there, holding the driver sharp point out and throat high, his teeth bared and his blue mech eyes _click-click-clicking_ massive. His entire skinny frame shook and you know what? You just know what? That trooper did not kriffing care if it was rage or fear doing that to the weird freaky guy, there was much better shit to do than take a short-cut through sector eight any more. Yeah, there was just much better shit to do.

* Matt's always been big and there have always been times when that's not so good, so sometimes Matt goes small. He ducks his head and rounds his shoulders, he slumps or slouches or mumbles, all so that he doesn't intimidate Sentients suspicious of his size. With Techie it's different. With Techie Matthew Kee goes _tiny._ The restful sort of tiny that takes child-sized sips of the soup Gala hand-feeds him. The kind of tiny that softly sucks Techie's fingers because it helps Mattie sleep after a bad day. The smallest, tiniest sort of tiny where Mattie murmurs baby talk while Techie bathes him, while Techie kisses his big wet ears then tucks him against his narrow chest in their warm bed. It's easier to be big now because now, with Techie, well Matt can sometimes be so, so small.

_—  
A Secret Scribbler inspired Mattie collecting tiny things and invented 'making puppies,' Winklepicker wanted Techie to bathe Mattie's big body, while 221b_hound said the flawless phrase 'baby beans.' Thank you all, you glorious creatures. P.S. I'd love prompts for this series, which I'll happily continue with your inspirations!_


	4. On Delicacy & Droids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some delicate creatures are more fearsome than they seem, while those who look ready to battle…won't.

* Sentients usually go to Nillaaba City for one reason: Clothes are forbidden. Most of the rest of Kuyru is formal, religious, and _covered,_ but Nillaaba…well Matt took Techie there on one of their days off for a very specific, very selfish reason: he wanted to _see._ See others seeing his naked little Lleev worm, wanted to see gazes follow, taking in his love's perfect white skin, the vibrant ginger on chin and crown, the bright thatch of it between his legs. Because he wanted that kind of a lot, he felt kind of bad about it, but when he confessed to his beautiful worm, Techie wriggled close and whispered that he _wanted_ to go and wanted to _show._ "It's the opposite of selfish Mattie, it's _sharing."_ "Because you're pretty, baby?" "Because I'm pretty."

* Techie didn't used to think he was anything but _odd._ Pale skin and orange hair, delicate-thin and mech eyes, so many singular bits of strange. Then Mattie showed him a different way to see and finally Techie saw that all the things he is make the beauty of the _rare._ Now Techie sees he's quite something to see and though there's a warmth-in-the-belly pleasure to that, his joy that sunny Nillaaba afternoon came from watching his beauty watching him. Then it got even better because little by little by little Mattie grew drowsy in that soft warmth and Mattie fell asleep. Oooo, did Techie take so very many holos of his naked giant then, starfished on the blue grass, erection pointing toward Kuyru's lowering green sun.

* Matthew Kee's big as a battle droid, actual fact, verified after Techie measured Matt's shoulders, his waist, his hands and his height against published specs. In each particular the man matched those famous machines and there's really no point in relaying this except to draw the line just a little darker under how charming it is that Mattie loves small things, from the sand ferns they fetched up from Galek, to those tart little glass berries that grow two hundred to a stem. Right now Matt's favorite wee thing bar none and absolute is something his future mother-in-law has sent him on the occasion of no reason whatsoever and that is a coo-inducing pair of Gala's newborn baby slippers and holy kriff he still hasn't finished sing-songing, _"OhmygodGalayouweresoteeny, ohmygodsososoteeny, ohmygod."_

* So it's lank-hair obvious that Techie's not over-concerned with clean and yes he'll go five days straight wearing the same clothes, but the man's not _oblivious._ He's perfectly aware that ordinary people bathe often, and he's also aware Mattie's ordinary in this way, but _damn it,_ right now he's got his naked legs around Mattie's waist as his giant lifts him from the bed and Techie's complaining loudly about his ignored hard-on, a hard-on _put there by Mattie_ thankyouverymuch, and damn it no matter how many times Matt uses sex as a ruse to get him out of his clothes so he can carry his little worm to the fresher, damned _damn_ it Techie falls for it each pfassking time.

* Mattie doesn't break things anymore. No, he stopped that when he was sixteen and heard the clear, terrible snap of a collarbone breaking after he fell on top of that kid who'd taunted him. He'd shoved, then stumbled, then fell and he _heard_ the bone in that boy's body give way. It broke because of his anger and because he was so, so much bigger than that foul-mouthed little fuck, the nasty boy who'd said that filthy thing and thought he could just _say_ it. Matt knew, he knew he shouldn't lash out but it was always so hard when they were mean, but people break so easy, they do and…and…and when people say things about Gala sometimes, mean things he can hear, Mattie's glad that Techie touches his hand then because the anger fades and he can breathe and get calm. Because Mattie doesn't break things any more. No. Not anymore.

* It's not a good thought he has, but Techie does have a certain sort of thought kind of often: The one where he thinks about what he'd do for Matt. He thinks through scenarios, does Techie, his mind wanders behind bad cantinas in cities they've never been, creeps through the corridors of the cut-rate freighters that carry anyone, no questions asked, and Techie thinks that if life brought them to these places and something bad happened, he thinks about what he'd do if he needed to. He knows that he'd break bones for Mattie, draw blood, he'd shriek like a banshee and rend. It's not like he wants that, no, but he wants to know. What he'd do. If he had to. If Mattie needed him. So Techie thinks about stuff sometimes and he knows and there's peace to be found in that. Peace in being ready to war.

—  
_Techie being cleaned was inspired by Winklepicker, 221b_hound said, "with a great big stiffy pointing towards the sun" and A_Secret_Scribbler asked about Techie's baby socks._


End file.
